Lesser known books by known authors

[Dark Muse]

When it comes to classical writers often times there will be one or two books that become more or less synonymous with the authors name, and I think sometimes other works by these authors may become overshadowed by the more popularized books. I think often times, people will tend to go and read the books that are most well known, but than not really take the time to look into further work by the author.

So what books by noted authors do you think have not received the recognition that they deserve?

[book_jones]

I'm sure I can think of more, but I can only think of one right now.

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. While Steinbeck is mostly known for his longer and more serious novels, this shorter, more lighthearted novel is one of my favorites.

[Leabhar]

Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell.

[stlukesguild]

I wouldn't call Cannery Row unknown by any stretch of the imagination. They even made it into a movie.

Kafka's Parables and Paradoxes which contains aphorisms, parables, etc... not collected in the short stories collections... and his Blue Octavo Notebooks which collect more short writings from private journals.

Dante's La Vita Nuova (The New Life)... well translated by Mark Musa, although I will always love Dante Gabriel Rossetti's marvelous version. A lovely collection of prose and sonnets that sets the satge for the Comedia.

Speaking of Rossetti... he is almost certainly under-rated himself... and especially his marvelous little book, The Early Italian Poets, which contains La Vita Nuova... and other poems by Dante, as well as marvelous translations of Cavalcanti and others. Rossetti honed his skills as a poet through his translations.

Boris Pasternak- My Sister, Life... in the English-speaking world it seems as if Pasternak is known solely for Dr. Zhivago... and yet Pasternak was THE great Russian poet of the century... recognized as such by other poets of such stature as Anna Akhmatova, Marina Tsvetaeva, Osip Mandelstam, and Yevgeny Yevtuschenko. This collection has huge reputation and strikes me... in translation I will admit... as to singing with a crystalline music that reminds me of Rilke.

Baudelaire- The Prose Poems... Les Fleurs du Mal is Baudelaire's central text... deservedly... but don't overlook the prose poems.

[Dark Muse]

Dante's La Vita Nuova (The New Life)... well translated by Mark Musa, although I will always love Dante Gabriel Rossetti's marvelous version. A lovely collection of prose and sonnets that sets the satge for the Comedia.

Speaking of Rossetti... he is almost certainly under-rated himself... and especially his marvelous little book, The Early Italian Poets, which contains La Vita Nuova... and other poems by Dante, as well as marvelous translations of Cavalcanti and others. Rossetti honed his skills as a poet through his translations.

I love Rossetti

[book_jones]

I wouldn't call Cannery Row unknown by any stretch of the imagination. They even made it into a movie.

Well no book by a famous author is going to be completely unknown. Especially not one in the 20th century. Most Steinbeck books were made into movies. The question was simply books that have not received the recognition they have deserved. I believe that Cannery Row is one of the best books ever written. I will agree that The Grapes of Wrath is better, but this might be his second greatest book. When people are discussing the best Steinbeck, this one rarely comes up.

And for the record, the movie was actually parts of this book and Sweet Thursday squished together. People who have seen the movie really have no idea what the book is about. I guess that's somewhat normal for movie versions though.

[aeroport]

Pierre; or, The Ambiguities by Melville. And it should stay 'lesser known'. Perhaps I shouldn't even have mentioned it. Stay away, dear reader!

[JBI]

Also, you may wish to consider Ugo Foscolo, who does not have nearly a wide enough English speaking audience.

[Dark Muse]

I will look up the name and look into some of his work. I always like to be introduced to new things

[stlukesguild]

JBI... I was going to ask you if you had read anything by Foscolo. All I've come across in English is his Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis and his poem Of Tombs or Sepulchers.

[JBI]

I'm using Italian Wikisource, but I am unable to find on Amazon anything but the Last Letters of Jacopo Ortis. Perhaps nothing else exists, which is quite sad really, since he was quite the poet.

[johann cruyff]

Invitation to a Beheading - Nabokov

What a great book, I really liked it. Too bad it's almost never listed as one of his best works.

[Dark Muse]

I do like the titile hehe

[WICKES]

Down and Out in Paris and London, Orwell.

:thumbs_up good one...it is a really great book.

Those Barren Leaves by Aldous Huxley (he is mainly remembered for Brave New World and his interest in psychedelics, which is a shame beacuse his early stuff, satirising the British upper classes and intelligensia is his best)

Hermann Hesse's 'Knulp' and 'The Prodigy'

Evelyn Waugh: Decline and Fall (imo better than Brideshead Revisited)

[kelby_lake]

The Loved One- Evelyn Waugh
The Last Tycoon- F Scott Fitzgerald (think gatsby but in hollywood)

[Dark Muse]

The Last Tycoon sounds like it could be interesting

[Janine]

I love Rossetti

Are we speaking about Dante Gabriel Rossetti? I love his poems and his sister's and his drawings/painting are amazing!

Dark Muse, this is a great idea for a thread. I noticed you have been starting a lot of interesting threads lately.
Hey, you having a 'creative mood' period. DM?
I also have read some of your new poetry and found it quite interesting.

This is funny, I actually try and find more obscure works by authors, who I have extensively read. Of course, being a D.H.Lawrence enthusiast, I have read several of his unknown or lesser known works by now. Here are a few:

The White Peacock - his first published novel
Adolf - a long short story about his family's pet rabbit
The Plumed Serpent
D.H.Lawrence and Italy - the 3 travel books
Apocalypse
Kangaroo

And soon I plan on reading his little known work he collaborated on with Molly Skinner:

The Boy in the Bush


I have also read many Thomas Hardy works; the lesser known ones might be:

Two on a Tower
The Woodlanders
Desperate Remedies
The Well-Beloved
Under the Greenwood Tree
A Pair of Blue Eyes

Recently I read a little known short novel by Willa Cather:

Alexander's Bridge

I will think of more and list them later on.

[Dark Muse]

Yes I was speaking of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and thank you.

[Jozanny]

I would include Gertrude Stein's The Making of Americans. I do not think it is a dialectic rival of In Search of Lost Time or Ulysses, but I also believe it is too readily dismissed as an experiment.

[book_jones]

I've always wanted to read The Making of Americans. I read the first 20 pages or so and it seemed like it was going to be really good. Maybe I'll get around to it someday.

[kelby_lake]

The Last Tycoon sounds like it could be interesting

It's unfinished but at the back there's Fitzgerald's notes on the plot, etc. It's like Gatsby, only a bit witty and satirical.

[cipherdecoy]

Hadji Murad by Tolstoy perhaps?

[JBI]

Emily Dickinson's letters, which are as intricate, and as beautifully written as her verses.

[stlukesguild]

Nice Botticelli, JBI... I'll stick with the Northern Renaissance for the time being, however.:)

I did update my signature to include an exam on Renaissance Art History, however.:lol:

[Jozanny]

Nice Botticelli, JBI... I'll stick with the Northern Renaissance for the time being, however.:)

I did update my signature to include an exam on Renaissance Art History, however.:lol:

Is this your bi side showing? (couldn't resist):p:p:p

[WICKES]

:


The Plumed Serpent
D.H.Lawrence and Italy - the 3 travel books


I have also read many Thomas Hardy works; the lesser known ones might be:

Two on a Tower
The Woodlanders
Desperate Remedies
The Well-Beloved
Under the Greenwood Tree
A Pair of Blue Eyes



:thumbs_up

D H Lawrence's travel writings are excellent and the Plumed Serpent is often overlooked- it has a description of a bullfight that is as good or better than anything Hemingway wrote (it also shows a bullfight for what it is: a squalid, ugly, cowardly piece of human cruelty)

Thomas Hardy's short stories are pretty good. People also forget he wrote poetry. Many critics think he was a better poet than novelist (including Stephen Fry)...I just think he was great all round.

The letters of Philip Larkin and Kinglsey Amis make great reading. Larkin also wrote a couple of novels that are worth a look.

Also, the letters of Aldous Huxley are fascinating and his short stories are good. His non fiction (essays etc) are superb too.

Anthony Burgess is mainly remembered for Clockwork Orange, but he wrote a lot of good novels and a great book on Joyce.

Evelyn Waugh: Sword of Honour Trilogy (among the best novels to come out of WW2)

[LC_Lancer]

Ghost Dance and Time Slave by John Norman. Many people know him only though his Gor series, but these are great.

Outlaw of Torn by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Beyond the City by Arthur Conan Doyle

[Vincent Black]

The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Tolstoy is to a certain extent little known.

[Michigan J Frog]

The Last Tycoon sounds like it could be interesting
It is not, (or at least I think so.) I had read Gatsby and Tender is the night and some of his other works but Last Tycoon was a huge disappointment for me. Couldn't finish it.

Regarding The Death of Ivan Ilyich, in my opinion that is Tolstoy's best work.

[Whifflingpin]

Anthony Hope was a prolific author, but who could name any of his works other than his often-filmed "Prisoner of Zenda?" This book gives the name to a whole genre of fiction - "Ruritanian novels" - but Anthony Hope was popular in his own day for social comedy and adventure stories as well as more serious novels.